Audio Postcards for Fun and Profit

Lots of web-based video applications at the DEMO 2007 show here in Palm Springs, CA, but one of the more intriguing products I've seen is a site called Yodio.com which lets users create audio postcards with still images for fun, and if they're done well, for profit too.

Here's how it works: after a quick sign in to the free site, your goal is to create a short audio story to describe your image. You create the audio file by calling a phone number, no microphone needed. It's recorded and kept on the site for your personal use. You then can use this file, or an MP3 file you've created and uploaded, to add voice to your image. Grab a photo off your hard drive, insert the audio, and email it to your friends or family. Alternatively, you can also imbed the HTML of your work into a blog or website, as I?ve done below (click the little icon)in this example of a single image VodioCard.

OK, this is a nice way to share an image and your description of it with your friends. But that's not really the major purpose of the site, though I suspect many will use it just for that. The true purpose is to create multi-image YodioCards, with audio, that will be interesting enough to others that they'll be willing to pay for the privilege of seeing them. Who would do this? Well, suppose you're planning a trip. These days, many of us depend on hotel user reviews to make a reservation decision. It might be kind of handy to hear, and see, what someone has to say about the hotel, or the nearby national park or the other attractions in the area. You might even be willing to pay a little for that kind of user review.

That's the theory anyway. Whether folks will bite and buy is another question. But that's always the question with DEMO products. After all, this show is billed as a "technology showcase" not a "sure-fire winners" showcase.

Run Your Own Video Channel

Creating videos, let's be honest, is a pain in the neck. But showcasing OTHER people's turns out to be pretty simple with tools supplied by Magnify.net

Launched yesterday at the DEMO show in Palms Springs, CA, Magnify.com members can create a website in seconds and, using search terms in an easy interface, they can "acquire" 100s of videos from YouTube, Google, and other sites in just a couple of minutes. It's all free, and is intended to build communities around highly specialized interest areas. Visitors vote on videos, and review them. Again, all free.

Here's a example site I built in just a few minutes.

Now, let me clarify a few things. First, these sites don't actually "host" anything. The videos stay on YouTube, or wherever. The videos you get using the search tool probably aren't all going to match what you expect, so you will very likely have to do a lot of weeding to get rid of the junk.

But it is kind of fun being your own TV "producer," even if you don't get the big office and couch.

Windows Live Messenger for Vista Available

The final version of Microsoft's new IM (instant message) client, which is optimized for Windows Vista, is now out.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 offers enhancements that make it more compatible with Vista, which had its widespread consumer release earlier this week.

What's New

Updates in the IM client include new looks for emoticons, contacts and display photos that take advantage of Vista's new and improved user interface, Microsoft said.

Microsoft also added the ability to send an SMS (Short Message Service) to a phone number or add phone numbers for contacts by clicking on a cell-phone icon in the client's main window. Also new is the ability to send a personal message when users want to add a new contact to their contact list.

Windows Live Messenger 8.1 also includes a "roaming identity" feature that allows not only a person's display name to follow users any place they sign into, but also their display picture and personal message.

In addition to new features, the software's final version corrects a problem users were having with beta versions, according to a post on the Inside Windows Live Messenger blog, which is written by members of the team working on the product.

A user with an old version of Adobe Systems' Flash technology on Vista used to crash the Windows Live Messenger 8.1 beta client, wrote Nicole Steinbok, product manager for Windows Live Messenger. However, the final version of the software fixes that.

"I still highly recommend you update your Flash player if you haven't already," Steinbok wrote in the post. "But if not we have put in an extra safety measure [that] disable features that use Flash and provides you a way to upgrade to eliminate the Flash crash."

Windows Live Messenger also is available in eight new languages: Bulgarian, Estonian, Croatian, Latvian, Romanian, Serbian Latin, Thai and Ukrainian.

Yahoo Updating Messenger for Vista

Microsoft rival Yahoo also plans a release of its Yahoo Messenger IM client that is optimized for Vista. Yahoo previewed the IM client at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month, and will put out a beta by June, with a version to follow in the third quarter of the year.

Thanks to Elizabeth Montalbano of IDG News Service for the info.

DEMO Show: Symantec Identity Protection

Symantec is going to launch a new identity protection product this Fall that offers two features that seem long overdue: site specific email addressing and one-use only credit card numbers.

The company, which showed the software at the DEMO technology showcase, said that its new Norton Indentity Client will help consumers do business on the Web with much less risk that they'll later be bombed with spam or, worse, have their "real" credit card number stolen.

Basically, the desktop software lets the end user decide whether or not to give a site their true email, or use an email address generated by the software that is for that site only. If they do the latter, all email from that site is forwarded from the alias email to the true address without the site owners ever acquiring the real address.

In what could be an even more powerful feature, users can use a "one-time only" credit card number, again provided through the software, to make a purchase. Many major card issuers already provide this service, but it is very clunky and difficult to use. The software will provide the number seamlessly. The company is currently working with major card issuers so that this feature will work with most end users.

I could actually see using this feature for almost ALL my credit card transactions, perhaps with the exception of subscriptions. I'll be anxious to try it out.

Like several other existing applications, SiteAdvisor being the most famous, the client will also alert end users to the "reputation" of sites they visit, giving them fair warning when they've reached a shaky spot.

The company isn't saying which Norton products will include the identity software, but did say it will be part of the company's fall release of Norton 2008 products.

Michael Dell Back in Charge at Dell

Two and a half years after handing the chief executive title to his hand-picked successor, Kevin Rollins, Michael Dell is again running Dell, the company he founded.

Dell struggled under Rollins's tenure, recently losing its number-one PC vendor ranking to a resurgent Hewlett-Packard and weathering a formal investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission into the company's accounting practices.

Rollins has resigned his position as CEO and member of the company's board of directors, Dell said in a statement this afternoon.

The company's board had decided that "there is no better person in the world to run Dell at this time than the man who created the Direct Model and who has built this company over the last 23 years," the statement said. Dell also remains chairman of the board.

Rollins joined Dell in 1996 from management consulting firm Bain & Co. Prior to assuming the role of CEO in July 2004, he had served as Dell's president, chief operations officer, and vice chairman.

Dell also warned today that the company's most recent financial results would fall below analyst expectations. Dell is due to announce its fiscal 2007 fourth-quarter earnings on March 1.

Background

During the third quarter of 2006, HP snatched Dell's ranking as top worldwide PC vendor, a position Dell had held since the end of 2003, according to research company Gartner Inc.

Another low point came in August, when Dell was forced to recall 4.2 million defective laptop batteries because of a fire hazard.

But Dell's real problems centered on two areas: HP's rebound and Dell's inability to gain ground in new markets outside the U.S., said Martin Reynolds, a vice president and research fellow with Gartner.

"They haven't really managed to crack the overseas market," he said. "What's happened is their core market of U.S. enterprise has slowed down--that's become single-digit growth--and HP, which has become a lot smarter, has been taking back some of the share they should have never lost in the first place."

In many countries outside the U.S., customers are reluctant to order a PC over the Internet and wait for it to show up at their door, Reynolds said. "When you get to somewhere like China, direct just doesn't work," he said.

Reynolds believes that Dell's return to the CEO position may be a short-term measure as the company looks for a new leader who can solve the company's international distribution problems.

He said executives with international retail experience, or perhaps someone from United Parcel Service or FedEx, would be possible candidates. "They can go pick from a lot of really strong people.

I place odds on someone coming from outside of the computer industry," Reynolds said. "This is explicitly a problem of distribution channel and paths to market, so there's not really a technology or an operational problem."

Thanks to Robert McMillan amd Robert Mullins of IDG News Service for filling us in.

Super Bowl Weekend in China? No Problem!

IDG News correspondent Steven Schwankert looks forward to Super Bowl weekend with some thoughts on what it's like to be an American football fan living in China:

On Feb. 5, at about 7 a.m. local time, I'll be watching the Super Bowl. For those of us living in foreign lands where football means a round ball, the NFL doesn't get primetime coverage.

Despite growing up as an NFL fan, when I say "football" now to anyone except my mother, I'm talking about soccer. When I watch football on any given weekend, it's the glorious exploits of my beloved Arsenal Football Club I'm enjoying, not those of the New York Giants.

During almost 11 years in China, I have slowly seen those vestiges of the U.S. unavailable here in Beijing disappear. The Internet changed the way we live overseas. Letters became e-mails. Amazon.com became the Berlin Airlift to the book-deprived, with CDs and DVDs following soon after.

But regular National Football League coverage was one of just two remaining treats that eluded me. That changed on Sept. 13, 2006. On that day, I discovered Ben & Jerry's ice cream at my supermarket, for about $9 per pint. That morning, I watched an NFL game, live via the Internet, in my home.

NFL Enterprises embraced the Internet for the 2006-07 season. Previously the NFL did not allow webcasting of its games, except for text and graphic-based commentary such as GameCast. But this year, international fans could buy a GamePass from Yahoo to view games live and streamed, at either $249.99 for the season, or $24.99 per week. Apple's iTunes Music Store sold season passes for fans to watch their favorite teams, uploading each game after its completion.

I took a different route. I downloaded TVUplayer, which seems to be a mass re-broadcast from a Slingbox Media device in San Jose, California. There was the NFL, complete with American sportscasters and commercials ("This is our country..."). I ignored that it was 8:30 a.m. and made popcorn.

I don't understand how TVUplayer is legal, but if they ever become a paid service, they can have my money. ESPN and ABC disappeared midway through the season, so I lost the Sunday and Monday night games that I used to watch on Monday and Tuesday mornings, respectively, but Sunday night remained sleepless as I watched the day games.

If living overseas teaches us anything, it's that in the Internet world, content distribution and licensing methods are grossly obsolete. I would have paid to watch the NFL live years ago--but they wouldn't take my money. Cinema and DVD release dates seem equally ludicrous when you live in a market where they're meaningless. Piracy makes a lot more sense when you realize that the guy down the street can offer you "Casino Royale" on DVD today, but Hollywood thinks you should wait eight months.

Next season promises to be even better for football fans here. On Aug. 8--exactly one year prior to the opening of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing--China will host to its first-ever NFL exhibition game, with the New England Patriots playing the Seattle Seahawks. But when the regular season begins about three weeks later, it will be first down and 10 on the Internet.

No, I Will Not Renew My Amazon Prime Membership!

When I shop online, most of the time, I end up buying from Amazon.com, because I almost never have a problem with it. It usually has good prices; it has excellent customer-generated product reviews; great shopping-cart, order-verification, and shipment tracking systems; and most of the time, when it says something's in stock, it is. In many ways, it's one of the best, if not the best, place to buy almost anything.

But criminy, Amazon is seriously messed up in several ways. Its search engine is awful: I searched for "iPod" and got four pages of results; of the 96 products listed, I'd say about 90 percent weren't actually iPods, but iPod-related products. That's fine, as long as you can filter the results, but Amazon gives you 29 (not-alphabetically listed) categories to filter by?including ?Baby.? Hmmn, I didn?t know that you could get iPod baby gear. Clicking on the link, the first product listed is a stroller; turns out it has a pocket for an iPod. OK, that kinda makes sense. But I saw a ton of iPod cases--yes, they?re iPod-related, all right, but how are they baby-related?

Next, I filtered by ?Kitchen and Housewares,? which lists 446 results (more than the total returned for "iPod"). The first listing is the Dalla Piazza Apple Slicer. How?s that related to an iPod? Oh, oh, I get it?it?s an Apple slicer. But the second product listed, Libbey 4 Pack Vina Stemless 16.5 Ounce Red Wine Glasses?I couldn?t find any connection to the company or the product.

And what about the huge number of duplicate entries? Search for some products and you'll see the same product name listed a gazillion times; the only distinction is that different third-party vendors are selling them through Amazon's storefront, but you usually can't figure that out until you click through to the product page.

Products that Amazon sells directly carry the Amazon Prime logo in search results. (Pay $79 per year, and you get "all-you-can-eat" two-day express shipping). Amazon says the deal applies to "over a million in-stock items sold by Amazon.com." That's another gripe: Products sold by third-party vendors aren't eligible for the Prime deal and because Amazon serves as a storefront for so many those vendors, I see the "not eligible for Amazon Prime" banner way too often. Sometimes you can filter search results by who sells them, so if you filter by "Amazon.com," you can limit results to only Prime-eligible products. But you can't always do that--it's inconsistent.

Because I paid for the Prime membership, I'm compelled to shop at Amazon first (the person who came up with this idea is a genius). I'll often pay more for the product itself just to take advantage of the shipping deal. Then I feel like kicking myself. And for the last month or so, I've had to look at a huge, blaring banner at the top of Amazon's site yelling at me to renew my Prime membership. I can't turn the dang thing off, either.

I won't be renewing my Prime membership this year, because I think, if I'm shopping at Amazon.com, then the deal ought to apply to anything I buy there. Sure, if we're talking about shipping a iPod, the charge probably won't be too much. One of the vendors selling an iPod, Electronics Expo, charges only $4, but that?s for standard ground shipping?it doesn?t even offer expedited shipping. But the point is, why should I have to pay for shipping if I went to the expense of buying a Prime membership?

And why should I have to steer around thousands of different vendors, examining the shipping costs individually, doing the math to add up product cost and shipping costs, and then compare the final costs and delivery times in my head? If PriceGrabber.com and all the other shopping engines can provide that information on screen, in a sortable format that makes costs easy to compare, why can't Amazon?

Sometimes you just have to know how Amazon's system works. When I searched for "ThinkPad X40 battery," I got 25 results, 14 of which were third-party batteries. None of the three Lenovo-brand batteries were eligible for Amazon Prime. But when I searched for "92P1119" (the model number), I got two different results, one of which was sold by Amazon and qualified for the shipping deal. Score!

Oh, and why the heck are so many of the products that Amazon lists ?not available"?

The biggest reason I shop at Amazon is that I just don't trust many online retailers. I've read too many of my colleague Tom Spring's stories about stores that post low prices then try to slam you with extras, or charge astronomical shipping charges, or try to stuff online pricing engines' reader reviews with fake entries, or?you get the idea. I always check where a store is located; if it's an electronics store based in Brooklyn, I shop elsewhere. Yes, that may be an irrational, knee-jerk reaction, but I'd rather deal with retailers I know for sure aren't going to hassle me.

Amazon won't hassle me--but shopping there can still be a hassle.

Video: Bill Gates on the Daily Show

In New York for the launch of Windows Vista, Bill Gates made an ammusing appearance on the Daily Show Monday night. Here's the interview with Jon Stewart:

For all the latest news, reviews, and video concerning Windows Vista, visit PC World's Vista and XP Windows Info Center.

U.S. Vista Launch Live: The Deed is Done!

The nightclub atmosphere here at the Windows Vista launch continues: as Steve Ballmer takes the stage, someone in the audience breaks a martini glass on the floor. I guess the party has now officially started.

Ballmer's brief remarks echo much of what he said at the lunch event today, talking about his enthusiasm for the products. He refers to the Vista and Office 2007 launch as "not only the biggest launch in software history and the broadest release we've done."

"It's also the best release we?ve ever made in terms of galvanizing industry support," he says, adding that Windows Vista will have by far the broadest support of any operating system in history.

After his remarks, Ballmer shows a short video and then is joined on stage by Bill Gates and several Microsoft partners: Kevin Rollins of Dell, Sean Maloney of Intel, Hisatsugu Nonaka of Toshiba, Hector Ruiz of AMD, and Todd Bradley of HP. Each of them is presented with a framed first-edition CD of Windows Vista.

In a cute moment--and one that is decidedly not in keeping with the cubbing atmosphere--Gates and Ballmer are joined on stage by members of the Regan family, who were part of the beta testing program for Windows Vista. The mother, father, and three kids banter for bit with the two Microsoft execs (the mom notes how she wanted a burn-to-disc button in Vista's photo gallery and says that Microsoft must have agreed with her, because now it's in there). The kids are then given the honor of pushing an on-screen button to officially launch Vista.

And with that, it's official. However, the party continues.

(Read my earlier blog entries from PC World's coverage of the Microsoft U.S. Vista launch event: Vista Launch Begins, Focus on Vista's Security, Live from the Vista Event Lounge, and Bill Gates Speaks.) And for all the latest news, reviews, and video concerning Windows Vista, visit PC World's Vista and XP Windows Info Center.

U.S. Vista Launch Live: Bill Gates Speaks

We're settling in for the late afternoon portion of Microsoft's Windows Vista and Office 2007 launch event here. From the line of folks waiting outside in the freezing cold to gain entrance to the event to the dim lighting and neon decorations inside the theater here in Times Square, the event feels more like a visit to a nightclub than anything else.

Bill Gates has just taken the stage to cheers. Like Steve Ballmer at today's lunch event, Gates spends some time talking about the history of both Windows and Office. He recalls 1983, when Microsoft committed to creating a graphical user interface. Twelve years later, he says, "Finally, we could say our vision of a graphical user interface had succeeded" with Windows 95. He recalled the excitement around the launch of Windows 95, which--as he notes--brought us long file names and 32-bit computing.

At that time, Gates recalls, your computing tasks centered around things like creating documents and then hoping you were able to print. Fonts, he recalls, were an amazing innovation. Tasks like digital photography and online shopping were just a gleam in our eye, he says.

Today, everything has become digital, he says, noting that as things have gone digital, people have high expectations. In 1995, there were no portable computers. Now, people want their PCs to run with their phones, he says. And, of course, he believes that Windows Vista is the key to the era we have today.

Gates highlights the four key innovations in the new software. They are the same four that Steve Ballmer mentioned and that I blogged about earlier today: Features that make it easier (things like search, and the Office 2007 ribbon); features that make it safer (such as antiphishing, antispyware, and parental controls); features for entertainment (including new ways to tag and organize photos and make DVDs); and features that keep you better connected (like finding Wi-Fi resources and RSS support).

Mike Sievert of Microsoft is now on stage to demonstrate Vista and Office. Stay tuned.

(Read my earlier blog entries from PC World's coverage of the Microsoft U.S. Vista launch event: Vista Launch Begins, Focus on Vista's Security, and Live from the Vista Event Lounge.) And for all the latest news, reviews, and video concerning Windows Vista, visit PC World's Vista and XP Windows Info Center.

Intel Demos 45nm Chips, New Process Tech

Intel made plenty of waves this weekend when it took the wraps off the 45nm manufacturing process it will use to produce its next line of microprocessors. The chips, code-named "Penryn" will begin to arrive in the second half of the year, with dual-core notebook chips as well as dual- and quad-core desktop and server chips. Martyn Williams from IDG News Service has the lowdown (as well as some cool shots of Intel's latest fab) in this video report.

But it's the technology behind the chips that's truly impressive. Intel's 45nm chips will be the first consumer microprocessors to employ a high-k dielectric and metal gate transistors. This piece from Real World Technoliogies does a great job of unpacking exactly what that means, but if you're looking for the 50,000-foot view, here it is: With Core 2 Duo chips already, Intel has ensured that it will be able to keep shrinking its microprocessors and ramping up clock speed. As they said Friday, Moore's Law is intact. That's a nice club to have in their bag with AMD set to launch its new microprocessor design called "Barcelona" this summer.

U.S. Vista Launch Live: The Vista Lounge

Steve Ballmer has wrapped up his presentation here at Microsoft's lunch event, and the company has lifted the curtains on its "Vista lounge," a small area where Microsoft and its hardware partners are showing off some of the features of the new operating system.

Interestingly, most of the attendees checking out the new OS are examining its business features, despite the fact that the lounge looks decidedly like a living room.

The lounge has only four couches--amazingly, when I walked in, two of them were empty. At an event like the recent mega Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, those couches would have been overflowing with weary reporters, but not here.

All four couches are positioned directly in front of giant flat-screen displays, and feature keyboards propped on coffee tables, as if to display how a Vista PC could fit into your living room, if you can spring for the big-screen TV, of course. At one, a representative from HP demonstrates the digital photography features built into Vista, which looked impressive on the big screen.

That was the only place where I caught a glimpse of the digital entertainment features that Steve Ballmer had raved about during his remarks. At the other couches, Vista's more serious features were on display. One reporter witnessed a demonstration of the BitLocker Drive Encryption capability that had been referred to during Ballmer's brief Q&A with the press. At another couch, a Toshiba representative showed an attendee how to use Vista's file backup and system restore features.

At a nearby booth, home to a variety of hardware manufacturers, including Sony, OQO, and Acer, several unique-looking devices were on display, including the new OQO Model 2, a UMPC from Medion, a sleek-looking Acer laptop, and a round Vaio PC from Sony.

Still, everyone that passed by seems more interested in the BitLocker demonstration going on. A few cool-looking gadgets, it seems, can't distract people from wondering if this version of Windows is as secure as Microsoft claims.

The launch celebration continues later this afternoon with a presentation by Bill Gates and another from Steve Ballmer. I'll be back with the details.

(Read my earlier blog entries from PC World's coverage of the Microsoft U.S. Vista launch event: Vista Launch Begins and Focus on Vista's Security.)

U.S. Vista Launch Live: Focus on Security

Still live from the U.S. Vista Launch event here in Manhattan.

Steve Ballmer and Microsoft's industry partners now are answering questions from the press. Not surprisingly, many of them are about security. (The focus seems especially appropriate given that several hundred reporters who are attending today's event are gathered at Cipriani restaurant, in a huge, vaulted stone room that looks as if it used to be a bank.)

To the amusement of the audience, one reporter asked if Microsoft already had a date for the first service pack. Ballmer answered with a hearty "No! The goal is not to need one." He noted that Microsoft will issue the first service pack if and when it is needed.

Another reporter asked how important security was in Vista, to which Ballmer replied "Incredibly!". He then went to talk about the included security feature known as Bitlocker, and how it would benefit both consumers and business users.

Another reporter asked if the robust system requirements to run Vista on a PC would drive up the average selling price of a computer. The question was answered in turns by Todd Bradley from HP, Kevin Rollins from Dell, and then Ballmer. No one came right out and said it, but the answer seemed to be yes. Here are quick summaries of their answers:

Bradley (HP): This is a very competitive industry, and we see Vista as an opportunity to drive higher-end products to consumers. But, the value space will remain. I think you'll continue to see great value for the money. Prices are hard to talk about because we're focused on bringing value to consumers.

Rollins (Dell): Vista has such rich capabilities, and we'll encourage consumers to make sure that their hardware is as rich as they can afford. The PC is the center of the digital experience and consumers will be wise to get as much hardware as they can afford.

Ballmer: Consumers are very keen to buy things they see value in, and it's not all about price point.

That concluded Ballmer's interaction with the press. We're now moving onto the "Vista Lounge" that Microsoft has set up here. I'm going over to take a look at it and I'll be back soon to tell you more.

(Read my earlier blog from PC World's coverage of the Microsoft U.S. Vista launch event.)

Live from the U.S. Vista Launch

I'm blogging live at the lunch portion of the official Microsoft celebration of the launch of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System here in New York City.

Enthusiasm is the theme of the day, from the flat panel screens on stage proclaiming "The 'Wow' starts now" to Steve Ballmer's opening remarks to the crowd, in which he notes that he is "too enthusiastic to sit".

His enthusiasm and optimism is evident as he discusses his expectations for Vista sales: He says that in the next 3 months, Microsoft expects to sell five times as many copies of Vista compared with the sales of Windows 95 in the same period after its launch. He said the company also expects to sell twice as many copies of Vista as it did as copies of Windows XP in that time.

Ballmer talks about Windows 95 a bit, noting that it has been 12 years since Microsoft launched new versions of Windows and Office at the same time. Since the launch of Windows and Office 95, he notes, things have changed greatly.

At that time, the PC was the only significant technology product in people's lives, the Internet was nascent, and devices like cell phones and MP3 players were either not yet in existence or not very widespread.

Today, he says, the PC is at the center of a digital lifestyle, where things like mobility and digital entertainment are important to the user. Both Vista and Office 2007 are designed to take advantage of this.

Among the highlights of the new software:

1. Its ease of use and excitement: he cites the new Aero interface and the integrated search in Vista and the new ribbon in Office 2007 as part of this.

2. It's safer, with a focus on security, he says, citing parental controls, and antiphishing features.

3. It's designed for digital entertainment, such as photos, movies, and games.

4. It's also about helping people connect, whether that be multiple computers, multiple devices, or to Internet-based services.

Ballmer is joined by some of Microsoft's industry partners from Dell, Intel, Toshiba, AMD, and HP, and will be answering questions from the press.

(Read my later blog entries from PC World's coverage of the Microsoft U.S. Vista launch event: Focus on Vista's Security, Live from the Vista Event Lounge, Bill Gates Speaks, and The Deed Is Done!) And for all the latest news, reviews, and video concerning Windows Vista, visit PC World's Vista and XP Windows Info Center.

How to Buy Windows Vista ASAP

Microsoft is doing what it can to drum up Vista arrival excitement, but don't expect there to be the kind of buying frenzy and lines on Jan. 30, the operating system's official release day, that greeted the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 last fall.

However, some retailers will be open specifically at midnight to accommodate the Vista crazed; expect these same stores to offer a variety of specials.

CompUSA

All CompUSA stores except those in Paramus and North Paramus, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico will be open at midnight, and begin selling Windows Vista at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, January 30.

The CompUSA stores will also offer sales on hardware complementary to Windows Vista, such as LCD screens, video cards, memory cards and hard drives.

The chain will also offer unlimited Vista tech support for one month for $29.99, and a trade-up program in which you can sell back your old notebook to CompUSA, and apply that cost toward buying a new PC.

Best Buy

Best Buy will keep open approximately 15 of its stores to sell Windows Vista at 12:01 on January 30th as well, and says it has trained 60,000 employees to help customers use the new operating system. You'll have to call your local store to see if they are one of the select few.

Starting Jan. 30, Best Buy will offer demos and sales, as well as free Windows Vista personalization services by a "Geek Squad agent," which will include adding gadgets, setting the background picture, and configuring Windows Vista for better performance.

For $100, the Geek Squad agent will set up your new PC, transfer data from the old PC to the new, and do a security check.

Other Specials

Expect there to be plenty of other specials keyed to Vista. For example, Microsoft has joined T-Mobile in a promotion in which you can get three months of free access at T-Mobile hot spots. Go to a T-Mobile hot spot with your Vista laptop after January 30, log in, and you'll get details.

Thanks to contributor Preston Gralla for the details.

Beware: Half of Pirated Vista Is Malware

About half of all downloads that claim to be free versions of Microsoft's Vista operating system are actually malicious Trojan horse software, security vendor DriveSentry warned today.

With Vista's consumer launch just days away, hackers have been bombarding discussion boards with offers of "cracked" versions of Windows Vista, which are typically being distributed on peer-to-peer networks, said John Lynch, vice president of sales and marketing for DriveSentry.

These posts offer downloads of the operating system that skip Vista's activation process, created by Microsoft to prevent users from running illegal copies.

Nasty Problems

Users who fall for the scam can end up with some pretty nasty problems, according to Lynch. DriveSentry researchers have found malicious key-logging software and spyware on about half of the downloads it has examined recently, he said.

Pirated versions of Vista have been in circulation for several months now, and one Vista "crack," called "Windows Vista All Versions Activation 21.11.06," has already been identified as a Trojan. Trojan horses are malicious programs that present themselves as harmless or useful software.

DriveSentry has also seen criminals disguise Trojans as free versions of Windows XP in the past, Lynch said.

It's an effective technique, he added. "Someone that's stealing the software to begin with is not going to raise a fuss if the software turns out to be malicious."

Thanks to Bob McMillan of IDG News Service for the info.

Can a Cell Phone Make You Famous?

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live life like a celebrity, with a personal assistant always on call? Someone to make your dinner reservations, or order your theater tickets? While it won't garner you instant fame, cell phone service from Voce could at least give you a taste of the good life. Voce, which describes itself as the "world's first premium wireless service," offers you a cell phone and cell phone service, complete with your very own personal assistant.

Voce's service plan includes most of the cell phone basics: unlimited voice minutes, directory assistance, and basic data usage, among other things. The company also offers a device program: you receive a free handset upgrade every year, so that as long as you remain a Voce customer, you never have to purchase another handset. The handsets you can choose from include the Nokia 8801 (a luxury handset that we reviewed last year), the Motorola PEBL, the Nokia 7380, the Dolce and Gabanna version of the Motorola Razr, and the Palm Treo 650 (the company plans to offer the new Treo 680 soon).

While the free handset upgrade is a nice touch, it's not what sets Voce apart. What the company wants to be known for is the service it provides to its customers. That's why every Voce customer has round-the-clock access to a live personal assistant, a human being who can support your needs--those that relate to the use of your cell phone and otherwise.

To access your Voce assistant, you dial 611 from your Voce phone. The assistant who answers your call will know exactly who is calling, and will help you with various requests, whether you're wondering how to access the Bluetooth features on your cell phone or helping you make dinner reservations at the Ivy in Beverly Hills. They'll research a local restaurant for you, order concert tickets, or tell you if Nicole Richie was adopted. (This was an actual question posed to an assistant recently, Voce says.) They'll also answer your questions about movie times, provide wake up calls, tell you the scores of the football game, or research the depleting ozone layer for you. If you'd like, they'll gather the information you're looking for and deliver it to you by voice, e-mail, or text message.

So, is there any limit on what your Voce assistant will do? The company does have some ethical and business limitations, Voce says, noting they won't "do things that are questionable."

All of this service won't come cheap: Voce charges a $500 fee to activate the service, and a monthly fee of $200. That includes your initial handset and the replacement handset every year. The company does not enforce any long-term contracts, Voce says.

Free Anti-Phishing in McAfee SiteAdvisor

McAfee today added an anti-phishing upgrade to its excellent SiteAdvisor add-on for IE and Firefox.


I've been using SiteAdvisor for some time to get search result safety indicators. With it, you get a small colored icon next to results that can warn about malicious software downloads or other problems on a site before you go there.


McAfee has now added functionality to actively examine sites as you surf to find phishing risks. It compares against known site blacklists and also heuristically scans for tell-tale indicators on unknown phishing sites. Given that no solution catches every bad site, it can be a good complement to the anti-phishing solution now built into IE7 and Firefox 2.





The upgraded IE addon is available now; the Firefox version should be ready some time tomorrow. If you're already using SiteAdvisor, it should auto-update over the next few days.


While you're at it, I also found a new online test from Network Magic that scans your network and PC and alerts you about any discovered issues.


The test looks for some important things like making sure your router doesn't still have the default password, that you have up-to-date antivirus, and that you don't have unknown open connections on your PC. It will also scan your local network for devices, which can help identify wireless freeloaders, for instance.


The scan will also flag as an 'issue' your not having the Network Magic software installed, which of course isn't exactly a security vulnerability. But I can't really blame the company for pushing their product with a free service, especially when it offers a useful free version of the software as well.

Americans Spend More Time With PCs Than Spouses

Don't say to the love of your life, "Either that computer goes or I do!" You'll be packing your bags, according to a new survey by Kelton Research.

Sixty-five percent of Americans polled said they spend more time with their home computer than their spouse or significant other.

But sadly, folks who have chosen a computer over their human companion don't seem to be getting much satisfaction.

Most survey respondents--a whopping 84 percent--said they were more dependent on their home computer now than three years ago, but that they had experienced computer trouble an average of eight times in those three years, and estimated they wasted 12 hours per month due to computer problems.

And on a tragic note, 52 percent of those surveyed said that their computer woes leave them feeling angry, sad, or alienated.

Thanks to Steven Schwankert of the IDG New Service for the heads up.

How to Be a Real Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero is a fun and addictive game, but playing its plastic axe won't win you many groupies (and won't teach you how to play a real guitar).

To wield a real axe, you have to learn chords and scales. That could involve slogging through a lot of books and/or taking guitar lessons from (gasp) a guitar teacher. But you could also get a lot done on your own with just your PC. A novel approach I tried out recently was used both software that interacted with a specially equipped electric guitar called the Fretlight FG-421.

When it was first explained to me that the guitar's fretboard would light up to guide my finger placements, I imagined a cheap guitar as gaudy as the Las Vegas skyline. So I was pleasantly surprised when what arrived was a standard electric guitar made of wood that I could plug into an amplifier and turn up to 11 (there was no evidence of the lights hidden within). The guitar wasn't perfect, however: Some of the frets were "dead," meaning that in a few positions the string buzzed excessively and didn't produce a pleasing tone. Fixing this would like require a trip to a guitar repair shop.

After installing the instructional software, I plugged the FG-421 into my PC's USB port. When I launched a lesson, red lights illuminated on the guitar where I needed to put my fingers. I liked how this worked, not having to look repeatedly at a book to learn the positions of a scale, for example. If the lesson involves strumming both upward and downward, the little LEDs light up rapidly in order so you don't have to look up at the PC monitor while practicing.

The guitar and software package costs $500, and includes 30 beginner lessons. Additional lessons cost $50 for a disc containing anywhere from 50 to 100-plus tracks that you play along with. The company also offers software called Guitarz for converting guitar tab files into the Fretlight format. Too bad lawsuits brought by the Music Publishers' Association have made it harder than ever to find free tablature online.

The Top 10 Worst Domain Names

You have to wonder what site owners are thinking when they come up with a domain for celebrity agents called "whorepresents.com". Someone could take it the wrong way.

Guess the shortage of available domain names can make it tough to avoid double-entrendres as
EasyWebbers shows in their listing of The Top Ten Worst Domain Names.

It's a fun list, though a bit salacious, and I have to believe there are a lot more bad names out there. Know any? Drop a line here and we'll put together an even longer list.

Aussies Vie for First Vista

When the clock strikes midnight on January 29, 2007, a Windows user in Australia will claim the first retail boxed copy of Vista--signed by Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.

That earliest shopper will actually be chosen by a drawing at midnight at the Harvey Norman store in Sydney's inner city suburb of Alexandria. In attendance to congratulate the lucky winner will be Harvey Norman Chairman Gerry Harvey and Microsoft Australia's new managing director Tracey Fellows, reports Darren Pauli, a correspondent with Computerworld Australia, a sibling publication of PC World.

But even the runners-up will get a bonus: The next 50 customers to purchase Vista or Office 2007 will receive a C653 Kodak digital camera and the first 100 will score a Microsoft VX-1000 Web cam. The store is also offering a discount on all computer hardware for the first day of shopping after Vista ships.

Snooping Software Creator Sues Apple

A Silicon Valley company is suing Apple for using its patented technology in Apple Macintosh computers.

OPTi filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Jan. 16 alleging that Apple violates three OPTi patents on what it calls "'Predictive Snooping of Cache Memory for Master-Initiated Accesses."

OPTi says Apple uses its patented predictive snooping technology without permission in its desktop, notebook and server computers and has asked for a jury trial to settle the dispute.

OPTi, of Mountain View, California, licenses its intellectual property to personal computer manufacturers and semiconductor device makers.

From Robert Mullins, IDG News Service

Google, Microsoft, and Others Agree to Code of Conduct

Microsoft, Google, and two other technology companies will develop a code of conduct with a coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to promote freedom of expression and privacy rights, they announced Friday.

The two companies along with Yahoo, and Vodafone said the new guidelines are the result of talks with Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

Technology companies have come under fire for providing equipment or software that permits governments to censor information or monitor the online or offline activities of their citizens. For example, last year, Google's approach to the China market was criticized over its creation of a censored, local version of its search engine.

A Yahoo subsidiary was cited by human rights groups for working with Chinese police to identify political activists, who were ultimately arrested and prosecuted for posting anti-government opinions and information online.

The parties involved said that they would develop a framework that would hold signatories accountable for their actions in the areas of freedom of expression and privacy rights.

The groups participating in development of the guidelines include: Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; Business for Social Responsibility; Electronic Frontier Foundation; Human Rights Watch; and Reporters Without Borders.

From Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service

Microsoft Reissues Excel Patch

Microsoft today reissued an Excel security patch published earlier this month, after the update made it impossible for some Excel 2000 users to open documents.

The problem affects certain versions of Excel 2000, which have been set to support certain Asian languages by default, Microsoft said.

Excel 2000 users will find that they cannot open some Excel documents after they install the MS07-002 security update, if they have also configured Excel's "executable mode" to Korean Japanese, or Korean, Microsoft said in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article posted today.

"This issue occurs because of the way in which Excel 2000 processes the phonetic information that is embedded in files that are created by using Excel in the Korean, Chinese, or Japanese executable mode," the article said.

The MS07-002 update fixes five Excel flaws, and is rated critical by Microsoft. It is one of four security updates issued by Microsoft on Jan. 9.

Thanks to Bob McMillan of IDG News Service for the info.

Whoops, Cell Phone Didn't Cause Fire After All

A Vallejo, Calif. fire investigator reversed an earlier finding and said today that a cell phone was not the cause of a fire that critically burned a man and damaged the man's apartment.

The investigator, William Tweedy, had said in a written report issued Saturday that a cell phone malfunctioned, igniting the fire, but today Tweedy said in an interview that the phone was not to blame, based on a test conducted by a Nokia phone expert.

Meanwhile, the man, Luis Picaso, 59, remained in critical condition at the University of California at Davis Medical Center, a hospital spokeswoman said. Tweedy said the man had undergone surgery Wednesday and was recovering. Fire officials have not been able to interview him since the surgery.

Nokia Called In

Tweedy said he called Nokia for assistance in the investigation and did not feel compelled by any source to revise his findings. "I called Nokia, and their expert performed the test in front of me," he said. The test was conducted Wednesday.

"The phone still works, so it's ruled out as the ignition source," Tweedy said. The phone, a Nokia 2125i, was fairly new and was burned, but apparently the fire started somewhere else, Tweedy said.

Tweedy also ruled out "everything" in the second-story apartment as a source of the flames, including the stove, electrical outlets and ignitable liquids. "Whatever caused the fire, the evidence of that thing burned up in the fire," Tweedy said, referring to a cigarette or match as an example of evidence that might have burned up.

Tweedy said the Nokia expert, whom he would not name, could make the burned phone work, and also could make a phone call with it. The battery in the phone was undamaged, Tweedy said.

Thanks to Matt Hamblen of Computerworld for the update.

Canon Announces Two Low-Cost Cameras

Canon announced two entry-level cameras today: the 7.1-megapixel PowerShot A550 and the 5-megapixel PowerShot 460. The A550 will cost $200; the A460 will cost $150. Both models have a 4X optical zoom, a 2-inch LCD screen, and an optical viewfinder. Both cameras use the company's Digic II processor and are compatible with MMC, SD and SDHC memory cards.

The PowerShot A550 offers an enhanced movie mode that records VGA video at 30 frames per second. It replaces last year's PowerShot A530.

The new cameras will be available in mid-February.

Sony Ups Resolution on Digital Cameras

Sony is upgrading several of its digital cameras with higher-resolution image sensors.

The DSC-W55 and W35 both sport 7.2-megapixel image sensors, an upgrade to the current 6-megapixel W50 and W30. The DSC-S650 and S-700 both offer a 1-megapixel jump over the current 6-megapixel S600.

Other major features remain unchanged. All four cameras have a 3X optical zoom, a blur-reduction setting, and internal memory. They all accept Memory Stick Duo cards.

The W35 and W55 will be available in the U.S. in February for $180 and $200 respectively. Both the current W30 and W50 cost $200, so the prices represent a drop for the former and a higher-spec at an unchanged price for the latter. The S650 will go on sale in the same month for $150 and the S700 will be available from March for $180.

Sony will begin accepting preorders online on January 23. Overseas launch plans have not yet been announced.

Thanks to IDG News Service Tokyo Bureau Chief Martyn Williams for the report.

Microsoft Expands Vista Options

Microsoft is increasing the ways that users can purchase Windows Vista, and upgrade to premium versions.

Upgrade Pricing, Discount Promotions

Tomorrow, the company is expected to announce pricing for a previously revealed consumer upgrade system for Vista called Windows Anytime Upgrade. Microsoft has said it will put all of the versions of Vista on one DVD in packaged form, or on a PC if the OS comes pre-installed. Users will get a product activation key that can activate whatever edition of Vista they purchase, and then can use that to install the OS.

However, if a user decides he or she wants to upgrade to a more feature-rich version of Vista than the one originally purchased--such as from Home Basic to Home Premium--Microsoft will allow a customer to pay $79 for a product activation key for that upgrade rather than requiring that customer to go out and purchase the edition at full price, which for Home Premium would be $159.

Thursday will also see Microsoft unveil a promotion through June 30 intended to inspire computer enthusiasts with more than one PC in the home to upgrade more than one computer to Vista.

Dubbed the Windows Vista Family Discount, it will allow a customer who buys the retail boxed version of Ultimate to purchase digital licenses for Home Premium for $49 each that can be installed on up to two other PCs in the home. As I've explained in the past, the suggested retail price for Windows Home Premium is $159.

Vista, Office to be Available as Downloads

Microsoft will also announce tomorrow that, for the first time, users will be able to purchase its Windows OS by downloading it over the Internet.

On Jan 30, various consumer versions of Windows Vista--such as Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate--will be available at the company's Windows Marketplace. Microsoft Office 2007 will also be available on the site, marking the first time customers can purchase the productivity suite by downloading it.

The company revamped the site in August, adding a new feature called Digital Locker, which keeps track of a customer's license key online so that software can be downloaded and securely purchased over the Internet. This feature is one of the reasons Microsoft now feels it is safe enough to distribute Windows Vista and Office over the Web.

Thanks to Elizabeth Montalbano of IDG News Service for the information.

Adult Movie Makers Join HD DVD Camp

Storage was a big topic at last week's Consumer Electronics Show and also at the neighboring AVN Adult Entertainment Expo 2007, which caters to the bustling adult video trade.

At AVN, much of the buzz was that many of the adult studios, which had previously announced support for Blu-ray Disc--in part for the format's gargantuan 50GB capacity--were throwing their weight behind the HD DVD format.

Why the shift? Although the Blu-ray Disc Association is open to adult content being released in its format, Sony's disc duplicators will not replicate adult content on Blu-ray Disc. And there are few duplicators now beyond Sony capable of replicating Blu-ray Discs. HD DVD discs are also easier and less costly to manufacture, another benefit.

Martyn Williams of IDG News Service patrolled the adult entertainment expo after he finished at CES, and shot an interesting short video, interviewing several adult movie executives, as well as porn star Jenna Jameson, about HD DVD and its effect on the porn industry.

While refusing to allow porn duplication is a business decision for Sony, the company would do well to remember what happened more than two decades ago, when the adult film industry was forced to produce its content on VHS, and not Sony's Betamax.

VHS, of course, went on to win that infamous format struggle.

Norton Gets Vista Upgrade, New Feature

Symantec announced today that users of Norton Internet Security 2006 and 2007, Norton AntiVirus 2006 and 2007, and Norton Confidential products will be able to download a free upgrade for Vista compatibility by the time the OS releases for consumers. Your existing subscription will transfer if you upgrade to the new OS.


The company also says it will be adding a new behavior-analysis feature to NIS and NAV called Sonar, which is based on technology it gained from its purchase of WholeSecurity, Inc. Behavior analysis attempts to block malware based on its behavior rather than a signature match, and is typically touted as protection from new and unknown threats. If you have a current subscription, you should get the new feature via a free program update.


Pricing will remain the same, per Symantec: $40/year for NAV, and $70/year for NIS. When available, the Vista upgrade should be available for download at www.symantec.com/vistaupdate.

Netflix: Direct Downloads to PCs

Can't wait for that copy of the movie Talladega Nights to arrive from Netflix? Starting today, says Steven Schwankert of IDG News Service, some users will be able to watch movies they rent from Netflix directly through their PCs.

The company launched an unnamed new feature, which it referred to as "immediate viewing," and said it will roll out online movie viewing over the next six months, with all users able to use it by the end of June.

Netflix will still offer its catalog of about 70,000 DVDs by mail to its subscribers, with about 1,000 films and televisions shows available for watching online initially. There is no additional charge to view the films online, the company said.

Subscribers wanting to use the new feature will be required to download a browser applet to enable the service, and movies should start playing within 10 to 15 seconds. For DVD-quality viewing, users will need a 3-megabits-per-second broadband connection, although those with slower broadband speeds can still use it, the company said.

The number of films a user may watch online each month corresponds to their monthly subscription plan, with subscribers at the $5.99 per month level able to see six films, and those paying $17.99 permitted to watch 18 films.

There is no mention today of the new service, however, on the Netflix Web site.

Cell Phone Catches Fire in 'Freak Accident'

A veteran Vallejo, Calif., fire investigator said today that a cell phone that was left on caught fire in a sleeping man's pocket over the weekend, causing a fire that critically burned the man and heavily damaged his apartment.

The man, Luis Picaso, 59, suffered second and third degree burns over 60 percent of his body, including his upper torso and arms, in the fire on Jan. 13, said the investigator, Bill Tweedy at the Vallejo Fire Department. He spoke with Matt Hamblen of our sister publication Computerworld. The victim was listed in critical condition this morning at the University of California at Davis Medical Center, a spokeswoman said.

Picaso lives in a downtown apartment in a four-story building that once served as a hotel, Tweedy said. The fire in the second-floor apartment caused $30,000 in damages, but the fire was mostly contained because a sprinkler system was activated. The man was found in a bathroom by firefighters.

Tweedy said that a thorough investigation showed nothing else in the bathroom could have ignited the fire, such as matches or a lighter. "The only thing that was a power source was the cell phone," Tweedy said.

Tweedy said it was a "pretty new cell phone" that was just a voice device, and not a smart phone. He refused to disclose the brand, saying it was not the kind of accident that would necessitate a manufacturer's recall.

Malfunction

"I think it was just a malfunction," Tweedy explained. "The phone was in his pants pocket and he was leaning against a chair asleep, so one button was depressed. That meant power was going through the phone, and the phone overheated."

It didn't help that the victim's pants were a polyester blend, which caught fire and then ignited his nylon shirt and jacket, Tweedy said. The fire spread from the victim to the plastic chair he was seated on, and the flame and heat from the chair set off the sprinkler.

UPDATED 1/16/07- 4 p.m. The victim was unable to explain what happened since he was unconscious when found, Tweedy said.

"I just think it was a freak accident," said Tweedy, who has been a firefighter and investigator for more than 20 years. "The lesson to be learned is that a cell phone is a piece of electrical equipment, and any piece of electrical equipment can short circuit or malfunction."

Dell Enters Rugged Notebook Market

Dell today launched its first semirugged notebook PC and plans to compete with Hewlett-Packard and Panasonic for customers who need a computer that can cope with abusive vibration, humidity, altitude, and dust.

Dell sells its Latitude ATG D620 notebook as an "all-terrain-grade" product that could live up to rough use by construction workers, military and police officers, or ambulance and fire-truck drivers.

The computer has a shock-mounted, 80 gigabyte hard drive, which is surrounded by rubber so it can protect users' data if dropped off a table. Other rugged features include a spill-resistant keyboard, port covers, and an extra bright, 14.1-inch LCD (liquid crystal display).

Dell hopes customers will choose the ATG because of its Core 2 Duo processor from Intel, and hopes that IT managers will choose the notebook because it shares common parts with the Latitude D620, said Gregory Dvorak, product manager for Dell's Latitude PCs. Using shared components makes an IT technician's job easier, he said.

Both versions of the D620 can share spare parts, from the docking station to batteries, power adapters, optical drives, BIOS and driver software, wireless LAN, and integrated mobile broadband.

Battery Life

One drawback to the design is that the ATG's ultra-bright LCD uses extra battery power. In order to be legible in daylight, the screen uses 500 nits of brightness, far above the 200 nits of a typical corporate notebook, Dvorak said. Each nit equals one candela per square meter.

"If you run it at full brightness, there will be an impact on battery life. That's a tradeoff to meeting that customer requirement," Dvorak said. Aside from turning down the brightness, users can upgrade from a six-cell to nine-cell battery, add a secondary battery in the media slot, or mount the notebook on a vehicle dashboard and plug it into auxiliary power.

Dell is selling the Latitude ATG D620 for $2,499 on its U.S. Web site, with plans to sell it in other countries in coming weeks.

Thanks to Ben Ames of IDG News Service for the information.

EBay Buys Ticket Site StubHub for $310 million

EBay announced Thursday it will acquire ticket selling site StubHub for about $310 million in cash.

The auction giant said the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of this year. EBay said it will offer to discuss the impact of the acquisition on its financial guidance in its quarterly earnings conference call on January 24.

StubHub started in 2000, designed to match buyers and sellers of tickets for live sports and entertainment events, within the boundaries of anti-scalping laws in force in most states. EBay said the acquisition will help to strengthen its own online ticket offerings. The move also eliminates a strong competitor in the online ticket resale sector.

From Steven Schwankert, IDG News Service

Answers to Some of Computerworld's 20 iPhone Questions

Mike Elgan asks some very good questions about the iPhone in his opinion piece for Computerworld (one of our IDG sister publications). I can't answer them all, but the day after Steve Jobs' iPhone demo my colleague Eric Dahl and I got a chance to play with a prototype and pose some of the same questions Elgan had to Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of worldwide iPod marketing. Here's the scoop, as I see it:

1. The iPhone looks as striking up close as it did from afar during Jobs' demo. The quality of the display is terrific, the lines are clean and simple, and the skinny profile impressive. The phone was a little warm when I touched it, but not alarmingly so.

2. The touchscreen technology worked, but not as perfectly as it did in the demo, at least in my brief experiment with the prototype. In particular, I had real problems with the software keyboard: My thumb-typing was consistently hitting keys adjacent to the ones I targeted. The iPhone has auto-correcting text entry technology that's supposed to figure out what word you were trying to enter, but there's a limit to its second-guessing skills after you've entered three or four incorrect characters in a row. Joswiak kept telling me to stop trying to backtrack and correct the typos ("Have faith," he said repeatedly), but it just wasn't working for me.

In fairness, however, I was impressed by the finger-swipe scrolling. And the pinching technology, which zooms in on an area of a Web page or other graphic that you identify by literally pinching the display, is truly amazing.

3. You probably won't be able to get an iPhone anytime soon without committing to a two-year Cingular contract: Joswiak didn't say how long Cingular will have exclusivity, but if you want this phone close to launch you will have to pay $500 (for the model with 4GB of storage) and $600 (for 8GB) and commit to both voice and data services that right now cost a minimum of $80 a month. If you recently locked yourself in to another carrier, you'll have to resign yourself to paying an early termination fee.

Joswiak said that by announcing the iPhone six months before it ships, Apple at least had given people early warning so they can plan their phone purchases accordingly. I might, for example, hang on to my Cingular Treo 650 longer than I'd planned to wait for the iPhone--my contract ends next month.

4. Elgan wonders about what it means to say the iPhone runs OS X, and I do too. What it doesn't mean, apparently, is that developers are free to create iPhone apps the same way they can create Palm OS or Windows Mobile apps. The iPhone is not an open platform, Joswiak says: Apple will maintain control over what you can run on the device. And we didn't hear anything about productivity apps for the iPhone, which suggests this isn't a business device. (No big surprise here since a lot of what make the iPhone so appealing is its capabilities as an entertainment gadget.)

5. In a related software issue, Joswiak said Apple does not plan to offer an iPhone VoIP client (for Skype or any other service). This doesn't bother me too much since Cingular's voice plans (like those of most carriers) support nationwide calling. However if you were hoping to use the iPhone's Wi-Fi support to make lots of VoIP calls overseas, you'll probably be disappointed.

6. Elgan wonders how sturdy the iPhone is. I asked Joswiak whether I'd be able to toss it in my purse the way I now throw in my Treo 650 without damaging the touchscreen. He said I probably could as long as I didn't have broken glass or the like in my purse. I don't carry broken glass around--but I do sometimes put earrings or other jewelry in the bag. On the other hand, I have put my iPod Nano in my bag, usually in a side cloth-lined compartment, without problems. I imagine a cottage industry of iPhone covers will quickly sprout, similar to the thriving one for iPods.

7. Jobs views the iPhone as a breakthrough on the order that the Mac was in 1984 and the iPod was in 2001. I'm not so sure about that. The Mac and the iPod created completely new product categories and industries; the iPhone, while clearly a tour de force in design, basically marries two existing product categories. As innovations go, it's more reminiscent to me of the way Handspring's first Treos combined a Palm PDA with a cell phone (although the iPhone executes with more flair). Achievement, yes. Paradigm shift? We'll see.

CES Video: A Look Back at the 2007 Show

Here is a video montage of the last few days to give you a feel of what it?s like to be at this huge outing in Las Vegas. Hope you enjoy it. (The music was composed by Associate Editor Danny Allen.) Until next year . . .

CES Video: GPS Roundup

I wrote a story earlier this week on how GPS is getting smarter and cheaper. Here's some video of four different devices shown at CES this year.

Alpine

Alpine's Blackbird PMD-B200--enhanced GPS that connects to your car's stereo:

Cobra Electronics

Cobra Electronics' radar detector and GPS system:

Mio
Mio Digiwalker 610 GPS personal handheld:

Tom Tom
Tom Tom's Go 910 in-car GPS:

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Photos: More Show Floor Images

PC World Staff Photograph Robert Cardin and his trusty photo intern, Carl Cochran, continue to barnstorm CES, looking for photos of interest, from diamond-studded TVs to what iPods dream of. Photos by Robert, text by Carl. Take a look . . .

The 1-Millionth Ambilight TV Screen by Philips

How does one celebrate producing 1 million flat screen TVs? The good people of Philips decided to build a nice frame for theirs. But not just any frame: They teamed up with the DeBeers corporation to elegantly encrust this one with around 3000 karats worth of diamonds. Saying the diamonds are a natural complement to the crispness and detail of the screen's crystal-clear images, Philips touts this TV as simply "priceless." Because of this, the corporation doesn't even allow the screen to be transported or on display without an armed escort present, making this one gift that can be seen but not touched.

Fujitsu Ultramobil Concept 1

This creative design takes a laptop computer and makes it fold into something about the size of a small CD case. It's very easy to transport and certainly won't take up a lot of space when not in use--and its stylish design will turn heads when you fold it out.




Fujitsu Ultramobil Concept 2

When iPods lie in bed at night and dream of what they would like to be, they think of emulating the Ultramobil Concept 2. This sleek device takes the concept of the Oreo cookie and applies it to the world of consumer electronics.

What first appears to be a simple square gets twisted into a diamond-shaped device from which you can play music, make phone calls, and even watch video. It's an all-purpose media device whose practicality is outweighed only by its style.

Celestron by Skyscout

This telescopic lens gives you an astonishing 144X telescopy, which easily blows away standard resolutions. It also comes equipped with a focus finder that tells you when optimum visibility has been attained, allowing you to take perfect pictures every time.

Although it is technically designed to observe stars in the sky, you can also use it to check out that cutie down the street.

WowWee FlyTech Dragonfly

WowWee's entomologically inspired indoor/outdoor remote-controlled flight device wn an Editor's Choice award from Popular Mechanics magazine for product design and innovation. Its simple yet effective four-wing design operates under the same principles as its biological cousin, allowing you to make it buzz around and pester people up to 100 feet away. It is also quite durable, so you can crash it a few times before you master the controls--which, as one marketer stated, "are so easy to use, an adult can operate it."








To see WowWee's devices in action, view Danny Allen's video shot on the show floor.



Fujitsu Q 2010 Notebook With Sideshow

What sets this notebook computer apart from all of the others is a clever LCD screen on the outside that allows you to navigate and access your data without having to either boot the computer or even open it up.

The screen is ideal for quickly retrieving relatively simple information like appointments or phone numbers.

WowWee Musical Elvis Bust

If you've ever wanted to sing a duet with the late, great Elvis Presley, WowWee gives you an opportunity with this convincing replica of the King. Using convincing robotic facial technology (it has Presley's signature lip snarl down pat) Alive Elvis can realistically lip-synch many of Elvis' greatest hits and also allows you to connect your iPod for more contemporary songs as well. Elvis impersonators worldwide are shaking their fists at this invention.

WowWee Roboquad

Behold, the house pet of the future! Unlike ordinary toys that you play with, the Roboquad will play with you. It can be programmed to be timid, inquisitive, or on guard. It's a charming robot that will wander your home, but it won't get stuck in a corner for hours on end, and it can transverse even difficult or uneven terrain. It should be an ideal gift for the pet lover who does not want to deal with feeding or cleaning up after an animal. And for the power freak, it can also be controlled by remote.




Create by iRobot

The problem with most factory-produced robots is that you have a limited range of models. The robots out there now are limited by the creative limitations of the engineers that designed them, and by existing market forces that probably wouldn't allow for that specialized beer-fetching gadget that you want.

With iRobot's Create, however, your robot is only limited by your own imagination and technical know-how. You get a fundamental platform that can be outfitted with everything from a robotic arm (for fetching your beer) to a wastebasket that follows you around on your chores.




For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Video: Voice-Controlled Radio and GPS

I got a break from the long lines for taxis and shuttle buses at this year's CES show by catching a ride with VoiceBox Technologies co-founder Tom Freeman, who demonstrated the company's voice-recognition technology for automobiles.

Watch and listen for yourself as Freeman asks an XM satellite radio to find a station by genre, and to tell him the score of a recent football game. Then he uses his voice to retrieve spoken driving directions and other navigation information from an in-car GPS device.

Note that for the demo, Freeman uses a Samsung Q1 UMPC, but he told me that, by next December, his company's voice technology will be incorporated in standard-size GPS products and car radios from manufacturers yet to be announced.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Video: Tivo Demonstrates on Comcast DVR

Got a DVR from your cable company? Have a few choice words for that box's horrible interface--especially when communicating with the TV?

Thought so: I sent my cable boxes back months ago, and haven't looked back. Here at CES, TiVo was demonstrating the fruits of its newly announced partnership with Comcast.

The company showed its service, customized for Comcast-On Demand, running on a Motorola set-top box. I don't know about you, but I'm salivating at the thought of this combo.

Here's a video on how it works:

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, please visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Photos: Digital Image Overload!

We turned PC World Staff Photographer Robert Cardin loose on the CES showroom floor, and he came back with a rich tapestry of digital images for your enjoyment. The text is by PCW Photo Intern Carl Cochran.



SanDisk Sansa View 8GB Multimedia Player

You're sitting on an airplane eagerly awaiting the in-flight movie, only to be find that the feature presentation is How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. This agonizing ordeal can now be happily avoided and the solution fits nicely in the palm of your hand. SanDisk's little device allows you to carry music, movies, and pictures in your hip pocket ready to be viewed in at only a moment's notice.

You can carry approximately 16 movies with it as well, meaning that your flight can pretty much circumnavigate the globe before you're forced to resort to watching the same movie twice.

Sony PlayStation 3 Display and Booth

We reviewed it in December and drooled over it (just a bit). You probably drooled over it while reading about it. Judges have drooled over it. And drool flowed again at CES 2007 for the Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console.

Turbocharge Instant Cell Phone Charger

Think back to a situation in which you desperately needed to make a phone call but your cell phone's battery was dead. It was dreadful, agonizing, and brutal no doubt.

Now think about how that situation could have been avoided with the Turbocharge Instant Cell Phone Charger that, true to its name, instantly charges your cell phone merely by plugging it into your cell phone jack. Having one of these could certainly help anyone with a cell phone. Keep one in your car, in your office, or even on your person.

InFocus All-in-One Projector

Unlike other projectors that only project an image and leave you to hunt for speakers that you then have to wire up yourself, the Play Big IN1 has the speakers built right in.

That means you can plug it in right out of the box and start watching your favorite movies on the nearest available wall instantly.

As an added bonus, you can hook your favorite game console (PlayStation, Xbox, etc.) to it and play your favorite video games on its projected image. And for the especially lazy consumer who finds getting out of bed to play a video game too much of a hassle, this projector comes with a special attachment that projects the image onto the ceiling so that you can play from the comfort of your own bed without even having to sit up.

AT&T Softphone

Going over your minutes on your cell phone is a real drag. Paying outrageous long-distance service fees to your telephone company also sucks. But now you have a new option that can totally bypass those previously insurmountable obstructions to communicating over long distances.

The Softphone allows you to make unlimited phone calls through your laptop or PC for only a small monthly flat rate. Now, you'll never again need to cut an important phone call short for fear of going over your minutes or producing an outrageous phone bill. So go ahead and call your family from all over the world and let them know how happy you are. Besides, your mother's worried sick about you.

Toshiba HD DVD Burner SD-H903A

Burning DVDs is great, but what if you want high-def quality? Toshiba has introduced the first-ever HD DVD burner for the desktop PC. It functions exactly like your old DVD burner but with HD quality. So now you don't have to sacrifice quality for convenience.

Phillips Demos Wireless HDMI

So you finally got it: a pimped-out flat-screen television with awesome picture quality hanging proudly on the wall of your home. But what's that unsightly cable that's running from the back of your screen down your wall and into your DVD player?

Get rid of it with Phillips wireless HDMI, which can transmit up to 25 feet away without sacrificing a single bit of your screen's image quality and simultaneously discard that cable that's messing with your wall's Feng Shui.

HP TouchSmart All-In-One PC

We wrote about this PC on Tuesday, and here's a shot of the touch-screen in action.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Feed Your TV Addiction

Verizon's V Cast Mobile TV

We've gotten used to being entertained pretty much 24/7. But we may not always remember to load up our handheld of choice or our laptops with all the things we want to watch or listen to on the go.

Connected devices like the Microsoft Zune help with that, but most of us already carry a connected device: our cell phones. And those cell phones just got more entertaining, thanks to Verizon's forthcoming V Cast Mobile TV.

Set to debut in the first quarter of this year, the new service will offer a broad selection of familiar TV content on your cell, available to you at the change of a channel, literally.

You can be watching Stephen Colbert and the Colbert Report one moment, then flip the channel to an NBC news cast the next or catch the latest videos on MTV (in the two hours MTV still shows videos, that is). Channel flip time was faster on the phone during my demo of the product than I frequently have at home with my satellite service and picture quality was sharp and vivid on the new LG VX9400. Samsung is also releasing a compatible model, the SCH-u620.

How It Works

Just like your home cable service, V Cast Mobile TV users will get a grid with forthcoming show times and program details, and will be able to watch the content as it's released. So you'd see the latest Jon Stewart barbs as they're broadcast to your living room bound friends, or keep up with the football game as you move from home to the car to the train. You'll have to suffer through the same ads, too, though.

Verizon has content deals in place with most of the major networks save ABC (though that is likely coming), as well as familiar cable fare from MTV, Nickelodeon, USA, Fox, Comedy Central, and more.

The service uses MediaFLO technology developed by QualComm's MediaFLO subsidiary. The technology rides on top of standard cell networks and enables multicasting: one signal reaching many users instead of the standard cell network's unicasting, where one signal travels between one user and one transmitter.

A competing technology, called DVB-H that performs much the same function, has gained some traction overseas, but has yet to make a U.S. debut with a major cellular carrier.

MediaFLO USA representatives also report that the technology is in trials with T-Mobile, Sprint, and Alltel Wireless.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Video: Trade Show Yin and Yang

Steve Bass, our crack columnist, came up with two tiny videos that sum up CES.

Someone shows you a groovy gadget . . .

And a tiny moment of Zen happens amongst the madness of patrolling a giant trade show with 149,000 other folks . . .

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Wireless Outdoor iPod Speaker

These days, CES just wouldn't be CES without the seemingly endless array of iPod accessories. But here's one that's worth a mention: Soundcast's water-resistant outdoor speaker called the OutCast.

The speaker comes with a wireless transmitter for delivering your iPod's music to it. Buttons on the top of the speaker allow you to pause, play, and skip tracks. The OutCast contains an 8-inch downward-firing woofer near the bottom and four 3.5-inch drivers near the top (behind the mesh in the photo).

The speaker lasts up to 10 hours on its built-in NiMH battery pack. But you can continue playing your music while recharging the battery. The OutCast will cost $699 and be available in mid-May.

For indoor use, the company offers SpeakerCast. This two-speaker box includes a remote control and a wireless transmitter with an iPod dock. The SpeakerCast will cost $399 and hit store shelves in mid-April.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Video: Belkin's iPod Mixer/Recorder

Belkin's forthcoming TuneStudio is a sort of four-track recorder for the iPod generation. The company's Website says it should launch this Summer for $180.

The mixer will accept four inputs and record in 16-bit/44kHz quality, directly to fifth generation iPods (video models). The Belkin TuneStudio also acts as an external USB sound card for streaming audio from or recording into PCs or Macs. It has a stereo-compressor, phantom power-enabled XLR inputs and each channel includes 3-band EQ, pan and level controls.

Belkin took me through the product's highlights in this video:

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

No Light? Take the Photo Anyway

Sometimes, you just don't have adequate light for your photo, even if you carry around thousands of dollars' worth of lighting equipment (which most of us don't).

Digital technology can help with that, but it can't solve the problem entirely, especially for those us carting around a point-n-shoot digital camera on vacation trying to capture the scene at the resort after sunset or snapping pics with a cell phone at a night-time concert.

Enter Planet82, a Korean nanotech company with a new sensor technology they call an SMPD (Single carrier Modulation Photo Detector).

Company spokespersons say the sensor is smaller than the photo chips that go into cell phones now, and draws about as much power as CMOS sensors and much less than a standard cameras' CCDs. But it is cheaper to make than CMOS because it's smaller, so Planet82 gets a higher yield per silicon wafer chip (IBM's actually doing the manufacturing).

The company demonstrated the SMPD at the Sands Convention Center in Las Vegas this week, unveiling a model that can handle color for the first time. Inside the demo room were two set ups with dolls, one farther away about 12 to 15 feet, another several feet away. The black and white sensor was trained on the farther group, while the color one was nearer; both were .3 megapixel VGA models.

In ordinary light, with no processing done on the image, I could see detail on the monitor depicting what the black and white sensor picked up, in both of the dolls (one of which did a funky little dance anytime someone clapped) and the skyscraper backdrop behind them.

The picture from the color sensor was fuzzier, but the shapes of the dolls and the color grid in front of them was easy to pick out, and the grid colors were fairly true to life.

Then things got interesting. They shut the lights down so that about .1 lux was shining on the dolls farthest away. The room looked pretty darn black to me, I couldn't see the dolls at all--except on the monitor.

There, they looked nearly as sharp as they had in full light, though I could no longer make out the buildings in the backdrop. The color sensor, which was picking up only reflected light, according to the company spokesperson Joshua K. Kim, showed a much fuzzier picture. Shapes were recognizable but were definitely not as clear as what I saw from the black and white one.

But I could see things, and pick out some colors from the grid, although the image seemed to show more yellows than were in the original set up. Still, given that the image wasn't processed at all and there was practically no light on, it's an impressive first step.

The company anticipates that its black and white SMPD will make its first commercial debut this year, likely in surveillance products and also in cars equipped with night sensors, which aid drivers by showing them images on a dashboard monitor of the road ahead (or behind them, when they're backing up) in low light conditions.

Because the SMPD is cheaper than the sensors used in cars now, the technology may make its way to mainstream cars instead of being the province of higher end models. The company also says that because the SMPD reacts more quickly than current auto sensors, and can operate in full light, it will boost the quality of the experience for drivers.

The company is currently testing 2 megapixel models of its black and white and color sensors. The technology needs to improve, though, before it can make its way into cell phone cameras. Company representative Na Young Park estimates that will only happen in 2008.

Creative Gets into Music Streaming

Audio-specialist Creative's biggest announcements at CES this year focused on streaming music around the home.

The company's new $200 Xdock Wireless (pictured left) comes in two flavors. One, as you'd expect, is for its latest Zen Vision media player while the other is surprisingly designed for Apple's video-enabled iPods. Both versions are otherwise identical. Each features technology to improve the sound of compressed music files and both have line-in, line-out and optical-out audio connections in addition to an S-Video output for displaying movies and photos on TV.

The Xdock Wireless can stream the contents of a docked player (via a 2.4GHz wireless signal) to an unlimited number of Creative's new $100 X-Fi Wireless Receivers. These in turn turn connect to any nearby powered speaker system. In "broadcast" mode, each X-Fi Receiver within 100 feet will pick up the same stream while "zone" mode lets each receiver-equipped room have different music.

Creative also announced its $130 XMod Wireless (pictured right); a USB-powered device for those who might prefer to stream to the X-Fi Receiver from a computer.

Creative plans to start shipping each device this Spring.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Video: Sleek Cell Phone Roundup

Apple's iPhone may be garnering a lot of attention, but it's certainly not the only new or noteworthy cell phone around.

Here at CES, there are plenty of phones that deserve a peek. Here's a look at some of the coolest phones we've found. Most of these are not attached to a carrier yet, so pricing and availability have not been determined.

View our video from the CES show floor, then read on as I tell you more about the phones.

Motorola

Motorola is showing off both the MOTOMING with EDGE and the MotoRIZR Z6. The MOTOMING, like far too many of the phones here, isn't available in the U.S.--right now, it can be found in China. But the handset has some interesting features worth nothing. Chief among them is its handwriting recognition capability. It comes with a stylus, which allows you to write on the screen (which is large for such a small phone), and your words are translated to typewritten text.

Also on display at the Motorola booth is the new MotoRIZR Z6. This phone is one of the first to incorporate an agreement between Microsoft and Motorola to allow handsets to playback audio files that have been encoded with Windows Media DRM. You can purchase songs from an online music store like Napster, and then transfer them to the sleek-looking handset for playback.

Samsung Mobile

Not to be outdone, Samsung Mobile is also showing off a music phone. The Samsung Ultra Music Phone sports a very unusual design: it's a two-sided candybar-style phone. On one side of the very slim handset is a very small LCD and a dialpad for making calls. The other side of the phone houses a larger LCD and touch-sensitive music controls. Samsung is also showing its Ultra Video Phone, which features the same two-sided design, but is optimized for video playback.

Samsung's ability to build thin handsets is also evident with the new SGH-a727. This super-slim candybar-style phone includes support for the speedy HSDPA network, which will allow for very fast data access. It also includes a 1.3-megapixel camera and an audio player.

LG Electronics

Over at LG's mammoth booth on the show floor, you can see the LG VX9400 and the LG Shine. The VX9400 is the company's new handset that supports Verizon Wireless' new V CAST Mobile TV service. The handset features a swiveling design that allows you to twist the screen to watch TV in landscape mode. The VX9400 will be available from Verizon in March.

The LG Shine, however, will be harder to get your hands on: the phone is available in Korea, and when--and if--it will ever be available in the U.S. remains uncertain. But this phone has a very sleek design and a shiny exterior screen that can double as a mirror.

Sony Ericsson

Sony Ericsson was also showing a couple of sleek-looking phones, the W200 and the Z310. The W200 is an update to the company's line of Walkman phones. Available in black and white, the phone features a dedicated Walkman key for easy access to its music features. The company is not saying when it will be available or which carrier will offer it, but does say that they expect it to be an entry-level phone with a low price point.

Like the LG Shine, the Sony Ericsson Z310 features a hidden display on the front of the clamshell-style handset. The display lights up when the phone is active. The clamshell-style phone also includes a VGA camera.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

CES Video: HP Labs' Proof-of-Concept Projected Display

Walking the show floor today, I noticed that Hewlett-Packard's big booth presence included a dimly lit tent for the company's recent acquisition: boutique PC maker, VoodooPC.

Curious, I peeked inside and found VoodooPC desktops powering interesting proof-of-concept displays developed by HP Labs. The displays are actually curved widescreen surfaces powered simultaneously by two projectors. HP Labs' "Panoply" technology and the graphics processor of the Voodoo PCs stitch the two projections into a seamless image, stretching and compressing pixels to remove distortion.

In the video below, I speak to Dan Gelb, a Senior Research Scientist at HP Labs who explains that the demonstration is far from a productized device at this stage.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

AMD Unveils CableCard TV Tuner for PCs

The size of a credit card but slightly thicker, a CableCard acts as a digital cable decoder and lets you replace your digital cable set-top box with another device. Now, AMD's new ATI TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner is the first CableCard-compatible tuner for PCs. It's a noteworthy announcement because it supports all US cable providers and you'll need such a product to record digital cable HDTV on your PC (it also handles NTSC analog and ATSC terrestrial digital signals.)

The TV Wonder comes in the form of an external USB 2.0 device (pictured) or as an internal board that fits into a PCI or PCIe slot. Due to restrictions imposed by the cable industry to protect content, it will only work with Windows Vista's revamped Media Center interface and only be available with new computers from the likes of Dell, Toshiba, Sony, HP, Gateway, Alienware, NiveusMedia and Velocity Micro. Such systems are expected to start shipping towards the end of January and AMD says the TV Wonder should contribute around $300 to the overall price.

Because the TV Wonder is a unidirectional receiver, you won't be able to use it to access on-demand content or pay-per-view movies. Also stifling will be the inability to burn recordings onto a DVD or even copy them onto a portable media player. However, AMD did point out that a PC equipped with the card can stream high-def (up to 1080p) or standard-definition content in realtime to a TV via an Xbox 360 serving as a Media Center Extender.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

The Future of Cable Television

Stream recorded TV around your house. Pull pictures from Flickr onto your television. Get more choice in settop boxes. Those developments are all coming down the pike for cable television subscribers, according to the folks at Scientific Atlanta, the Cisco subsidiary that makes a very large proportion of the country's cable television settop boxes.

The most definite development is the introduction of CableCards in the back of settop boxes. It's definite because the industry is under a regulatory deadline: The FCC mandated that all new boxes have them by July 1. I got the clear impression from at least one of the SA employees that their acceptance of the mandate is a bit grudging. She argued that most consumers won't even know the CableCard's there, but will pay more for their settop box because of the expense of adding it. It will give consumers choices, though. They'll be able to use a different box if they find one with functions they like better. Or they may be able to dispense with the box entirely if their TV has a CableCard slot.

What will likely be useful to more people is multi-room DVR capability: Record a show on a box with a hard drive in your living room and you can play that show on up to three other boxes elsewhere in your house. That kind of system could also access photos on your PC's hard drive. And the stream from your security camera at the front door could become channel 999 on your TV. Time Warner and Cox cable networks are trying the new system, but there's no firm timetable for when it'll be rolled out.

Cable companies are also experimenting with connections between your TV and the web. One program lets you connect to Flickr, the popular photo service. You can enter a search term through your remote and you'll get a slideshow of photos that are tagged with that term. Another application lets you view and pay your cable bill through an interface on your television.

Both applications are being trialed in limited areas of the country.

A PC World Editor's MacWorld Notebook

It's weird being a PC World editor at MacWorld, sort of like traveling overseas: A lot of what you see on the show floor has no relevance at home. But with Apple itself acknowledging that it is transitioning from niche computer maker to mainstream consumer electronics giant, more and more products at MacWorld are platform-agnostic, or at least endowed with cross-platform appeal.

I found it interesting, for example, that Epson decided to announce its latest pro-sumer photo printer, the Stylus Photo 1400, at MacWorld rather than the Consumer Electronics Show that's still underway in Las Vegas.

This $400, six-cartridge printer is capable of super-high resolution (up to 5760 x 1440 dpi) on paper measuring up to 13-by-19 inches. It uses Epson's dye-based Claria inks, that promise superior color quality and print longevity. The Stylus Photo 1400 can print an 11-by-14-inch photo in under 3 minutes, Epson says.

Why show it at MacWorld? Probably because Epson believes the show attracts the target market for this printer: digital photo enthusiasts who are ready to create prints large enough to show off the detail such a camera can capture. The Stylus Photo 1400 will be available next month, Epson says.

Similarly, NEC was there with a number of high-end LCDs, including some larger (40- and 46-inch) HD displays in their new Multeos line that can double as TVs (one even has an optional tuner).

Of course, a lot of products on display at MacWorld are designed to work with iPods. Alpine Electronics, which makes after-market automotive audio gear, was showing off its new, state-of-the-art iDA-X001 head unit, the first of its kind with a USB connector that allows it to fully control fifth-generation iPods (it can play music from earlier models, but the full interface integration is not available and even partial integration requires an optional $30 cable). However I'm not sure I'm ready to invest $450 to be able to stash my iPod in the glove compartment while listening to its music.

High-end earphones for iPods were also much in evidence. Etymotic Research showed me its ety8 Bluetooth earphones, which contact wirelessly to an iPod outfitted with a Bluetooth dongle. The photo below shows the earphones, the dongle, and the included case, which go for $299 (you can get the earbuds alone without the iPod adapter for $199). They sounded pretty good in my brief test.

I also stopped by Ultimate Ears' booth. This is a company that specializes in custom-molded earbuds for rock stars (they create them from silicon impressions of customers' ears), but now has a consumer line as well. They're not custom molded, but they do look cool in a sort of chunky way. The top-of-the-line Triple.fi 10 Pro encases three speakers in blue plastic and costs a cool $400.

An earlier model, the Super.fi 5 Pro, made our 100 best products of the year list last spring (it was No. 89) so I'm eager to see if this new version lives up to its predecessor.

New Drive Adds Security to Disc Burning

LG Electronics will be integrating into its Super Multi DVD Rewriter Nero's SecurDisc technology, which password protects and encrypts a data (not audio or video) CD or DVD so that only the intended recipient can look at the data.

It also checks the disc for deterioration over time, and will let you know about any degradation so that you can backup your data before you lose it.

To burn a SecurDisc, you'll need a disc-burning program such as Nero Express that supports the technology. Your files are encrypted as they burn to the disc, and you create a public key to send to the disc's intended recipient via e-email.

This person will need the key to unlock the information on the disc. If the recipient doesn't have SecurDisc hardware, he or she will need to go to the SecurDisc Web site to download a free player that enables the decryption process. For double protection, you can password protect the disc as well.

SecurDisc also analyzes the disc upon reading it to see if there's any degradation of data over time. If there is, you'll get a warning about it so that you can back up the data before it's lost.

This is not a repair program so SecurDisc can't do anything about damaged or scratched discs, but if you back up a lot of photos, music, or other documents--it might be valuable to know if the discs they're on are losing life.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Canon Announces Digital Camcorders

Canon has added three models to its entry-level lineup of mini-DV camcorders, starting at $279. All three models offer 35X optical zoom, which the company says is its longest optical zoom it has ever put on a camcorder.

The ZR850, ZR830, and ZR800 Mini-DV Camcorders use image stabilization, have a 0.35-inch viewfinder, and offer a joystick controller designed to ease navigation. These camcorders have a 2.7-inch widescreen LCD and can record in 16:9 aspect ratio.

The ZR850 ($329) and ZR830 ($299) have a standby mode called Quick Start, which allows for faster startup times. The ZR800, which lacks this feature, will cost $279. All three models weigh less than one pound and will be available in late January. Three colors are available: black, gray, and blue.

Canon also unveiled four models in its DC line of DVD camcorders with a 35X optical zoom. The DC230, DC220 and DC210 also have the Quick Start feature, have a 2.7-inch widescreen LCD, and can shoot in 16:9 aspect ratio. The camcorders record on three-inch DVD-R/-RW discs; dual-layer discs can store up to 108 minutes of video.

To these features, the DC220 adds advanced features such as a nine-point autofocus and a miniSD memory card slot that's able to capture still images in 1024 by 768 resolution. The DC230 offers these same features, and adds a 1.07 megapixel CCD image sensor that can record video and still images at 1152 by 864 resolution to a miniSD card. The DC230 also comes with a wireless remote control.

The DC210 ($399), DC220 ($449) and DC230 ($499) will be available in March.

Nokia's 6131 Phone: Make Payments, Share Info

If you're familiar with the way RFID payment tools--like MasterCard's PayPass--work, then the concept behind Nokia's 6131 NFC phone will be easy to understand.

The phone, shown below, contains a technology known as Near Field Communications (NFC) that allows you to use it to make payments and share information.

NFC is similar to RFID, except that the technology only works at a close range. This gives you an added layer of security, Nokia says. The clamshell-style phone contains the NFC components above its display; to make a payment you simply hold that part of the phone near the payment reader.

Though NFC is slightly different than RFID, the RFID readers that are currently used to accept PayPass payments will be able to read it, Nokia says. To make the payment even more secure, users can be required to type in a simple code before scanning the phone to prevent it from being misused if lost or stolen.

The NFC technology has applications beyond mobile payments. Here at CES, Nokia is demonstrating how it can be used to read NFC-enabled business cards and advertisements. Swipe a business card, and the information appears in the phone. Scan a movie poster, and the trailer for the movie will be downloaded to your phone. Read an advertisement and the phone number of the restaurant will appear on your phone.

Nokia says it plans to begin trials of the technology with both Visa and MasterCard. The phone on display at CES is a full-featured cell phone, but Nokia says we shouldn't expect to see it on store shelves here in the U.S. soon. It is primarily being used as a way to demonstrate the NFC technology, which the company hopes will make its way to more phones in the future.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

ViewSonic Plans to Offer $399 Projector

Yes, Virginia, there are some gotchas to ViewSonic's $399 projector. For one, that price the company is touting is after a mail-in rebate. The expected MSRP is $599, but after the street price discounting and the rebate, the company expects consumers to only have to pay $399 net.

That's not too shabby--even if it is only for an SVGA 800-by-600 resolution projector. The PJ503D carries a brightness rating of 1500 lumens, and lacks the optical zoom features you'd find in other models.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Lite-On Shows 20X DVD Burner, Blu-ray Disc Drive

Off the CES show floor Lite-On was displaying its new Blu-ray Disc drive, the 2X Blu-ray Disc Triple Writer LH-2B1S, available with a SATA interface for just $650. For those keeping track at home, that's a 35 percent price drop in just the first six months of Blu-ray Disc burners shipping; when the Pioneer BDR-101A debuted in May 2006, that model cost $999.

The drive does 2X reads and writes for Blu-ray Disc media, as well as up to 12X writes for DVD+/-R, 4X writes for DVD+/-R Double Layer, 8X writes for DVD+RW, and 6X writes for DVD-RW, Lite-On will also offer an external model.

A 20X DVD burner is also shipping now. This burner is an industry first--albeit one that comes ahead of any standard for 20X DVD+/-R media. Only some Taiyo Yuden discs will burn at 20X, so your speed boost with this drive may be incremental. The LH-20A1H is available in both PATA and SATA versions, and it has Lite-On's SmartWrite technology for optimizing the drive's write strategy on a disc-by-disc basis. It also offers LightScribe label etching. Both internal and external versions are available as of the end of January.

The LH-20A1H writes to DVD+/-R DL at 8X, DVD+RW at 8X, DVD-RW at 6X, and DVD-RAM at 12X.

Lite-On also showed a Blu-ray Disc Combo LH-2E1S, a SATA BD Reader with DVD writer capabilities. The maximum write speeds for DVD are a bit below what you'd expect with a stand-alone DVD burner: 12X for DVD+/-R single-layer, and 4X for double-layer media. Lite-On didn't discuss pricing or availability for this drive.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

ViewSonic Adds iPod Dock to Projector

Yes, the iPod really is taking over the world.

Its next stop on world domination: ViewSonic's $999 PJ258D ViewDock Projector. Introduced at CES, this sleek, oval-shaped model integrates an iPod dock on the top surface.

And, the ViewDock Projector becomes ViewSonic's second product to integrate an iPod dock; late last year, the company also introduced monitors with an iPod dock built in.

Designed to accommodate the current video-capable iPod, the dock is intended to make it simple to view downloaded movies on a projected screen. The image quality in the demo, using a movie downloaded from iTunes, was better than I expected.

This 4-segment color wheel DLP-based projector carries a native resolution of XGA 1024 by 768 pixels, a contrast ratio of 2000:1, and has a brightness rating of 2000 lumens. The 3.9 model has home theatery-looks: It's looks similar to a PlayStation 3. IPod playback is handled via the included remote, or via the iPod's controls.
It's slated to start shipping at the beginning of February.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Stream YouTube, iTunes to Your TV

Another impressive Netgear introdution at CES is the Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000), a $350 digital media receiver that
retrieves video, audio, and images from all the PCs on your home network or from the Internet for playback on your TV.

One of my colleagues has already blogged on this, but I thought I'd chime in.

Yes, you can now view YouTube videos in the comfort of your living room, without having to connect your TV directly to a PC. But can videos designed to run in a small player embedded in a browser window scale up to your TV screen's size and resolution?

As you would expect, the Mentos-in-the-Diet-Cook video looks like it was shot through a waterfall, but c'mon, YouTube videos have never relied on high-quality playback (in fact, the grainy images are part of the service's charm). When you tire of the world?s silliest home videos and other YouTube highlights, you'll be ready to stream your high-definition video up to 1080p resolution over the device's HDMI port (it also features composite, component, and S-video connections).

The EVA8000 links to your network via Ethernet, or its built-in 802.11g connection, although for peak performance, the company recommends using a Powerline HD adapter, which it sells separately for about $175. Regardless of your connection method, the box's sleek, slim design lets it look at home on top of your TV.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, please visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Truly Mobile Payments, and More

Near Field Communication and Nokia allow limitless cell phone possibilities.

By now, using your cell phone to send text messages, play music, take pictures, and even capture video is old hat. But how about swiping it over a spot on the wall and getting information about the restaurants in the area? Or going up to the checkout counter at a store and swiping it over a Visa logo to pay for your purchases?

That's the kind of functionality Near Field Communication (NFC) can bring about. Circuitry inside the cell phone exchanges information with a corresponding paper-thin 20-cent sensor that can be hiding behind a logo on wall, a picture frame--pretty much anything.

That sensor can be "locked" so that's it's read-only and the cell phone can't affect it, or it can communicate with the cell phone and get information from it, say a picture you have stored that you now want to transfer to your printer or your PC. The transfer happens in a matter of seconds, and without wires.

At ShowStoppers on Monday night, Nokia's Gerhard Romen, Head of NFC Market Development in Nokia's Emerging Business Unit, was on hand to demonstrate the technology with several new Nokia phones announced earlier at the CES show.

He showed the technology performing an image transfer, and a secure credit card payment (complete with access to payment history and accounts).

The technology can also be used to give information to users. For example, say you're attending a basketball game. As you come in, you might see an info spot for NFC-capable devices. There, you might be able to get a map of the stadium, stats for the teams playing, or dates for upcoming games.

VIP season pass holders might get even more customized information or special offers. The technology can be tailored to make those kinds of distinctions, and serve up one kind of content to some users, and other content to others.

The technology has been around for a while, but it's only now getting more "real." The NFC Forum, a consortium of various companies which support the technology, issued its first four specifications in August of last year, and a three-to-six month trial is now under way for mobile payment in New York City. There, Cingular customers with MasterCards will get special Nokia phones to allow them to make payments at any retailer that accepts MasterCard PayPass.

Late in 2005, Atlanta played host to another trial, with Visa members this time, at the Philips Arena. Customers were able to make payments with their phones at concession stands in the arena, and to get information as well.

Looks like soon we may all have one more reason to try not to lose our cell phones.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Power Backup Battery Has Built-In Flashlight

Sometimes, the simplest ideas are truly the very best. Anyone with a backup power supply for their computers, and you're absolutely nuts not to have one, can relate to this scenario: the power goes out, the backup comes on so your computer can be shut down, but you're fumbling in the dark because you can't find your flashlights.

Belkin ends this particular problem by including a built-in, removable, flashlight as part of a new product, appropriately called The Belkin Battery Backup with Flashlight.

You can see the flashlight embedded in the front of the device in this picture.

Available in mid-February for $99, the device has a 550VA battery-load that will provide up to 20 minutes of backup power so that you can safely shut down your equipment when the lights go out, as the inevitably do. It offers 4 battery-backup outlets and 2 surge-protected outlets.

And there?s that built in LED flashlight, which, not surprisingly has a rechargeable battery that juices up when placed back into the sleek-looking unit.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, please visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Packet8 Unveils Video Phone for Consumers

Packet8 may not be the best-known voice over IP provider around. But the company, which offers a VoIP service that competes with Vonage, is showing off an interesting device here at CES.

Called the Packet8 Tango Video Terminal Adapter, the device is a videophone for consumers. The Tango, which measures 8.5 inches tall by 5.5 inches wide by 1.4 inches deep and weighs 2 pounds, features a 5-inch color LCD.

It connects to your home phone handset and your broadband router or modem via Ethernet. It serves as the ATA necessary to connect to Packet8's VoIP service, which costs $19.95 per month for an unlimited account.

To make a video call, you must first place a voice call though your phone handset--the Tango does not include an audio speaker. Once the call is connected, you can use the Tango to send video to and receive video from your caller.

The camera captures full-motion video at up to 30 frames per second. Video calls can be made between two Tango users, or between one Tango user and a user of Packet8's software-based softphone service, which also offers video calling.

The Tango is scheduled to be available in late February or early March for $250.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Netgear Phone Supports VoIP, Landlines

You see tons of products at a show like CES, but rare are those that make you think, "It's about time." The $199 Dual-Mode Cordless Phone with Skype (SPH200D) from Netgear lets you make calls over standard telephone lines or via Skype's VoIP service.

The phone connects to your home router via ethernet for VoIP calls, and to your phone wall jack using standard twisted-pair lines. Having both connections means you can make VoIP and standard calls simultaneously over the same phone when you add a second cordless handset (an additional $99; up to three handsets can be used with
a single phone, although only one VoIP and one landline call can be placed at the same time).

Another bonus is the phone's use of the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephony (DECT) wireless standard, which operates at a frequency of 1.9GHz. This should help it avoid interference with existing 802.11b and g wireless nets, which run at 2.4GHz, as well as with the many cordless phones that use that frequency.

The SPH200D is the first phone in the U.S. to use DECT technology, according to Netgear, so only time will tell whether DECT actually reduces wireless interference.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, please visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

RTX Shows Handset With Built-In Skype

RTX America is showing a new Skype handset that differs from most of the phones on the market. Skype handsets, which allow you to access the Internet-based phone service without using a headset connected to your PC, have been around for a while.

Most of these handsets, like the Logitech Cordless Internet Handset, which we recently reviewed, access your Skype account via your PC. The new phone from RTX America, however, comes with the Skype software embedded into the device

Known as the DUALphone 3308, the Skype-certified phone consists of a sleek-looking black cordless handset and charging station, as well as a base station that features landline and Ethernet ports. You do need broadband Internet access to use the phone, which can make and receive calls via your Skype account and your regular landline.

You can use the handset to access an existing Skype account, or you can sign up for a new account using the handset. The handset features a small LCD that displays your Skype contacts and their status in an easy-to-read graphical interface.

The DUALphone 3308 will be available from RTX America's retail partners in March or April, the company says. Pricing has not been determined, but the handset will likely sell for $160 to $180, the company says.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Disney's Online World: Serious Makeover

Hed:

Disney.com may be targeted at families and kids, but the new site, debuting on January 29, uses some serious technology to deliver an impressive experience for its visitors, featuring video, chat, highly customizable content, and themed areas.

The new home page (see screenshot below) will feature a navigation bar on top that lets users travel the site via major content categories, from movies to TV to music, travel, shopping, characters (like Winnie the Pooh, Jack Sparrow, and Peter Pan), games and more. Click on one of those categories, and you'll be taken to a page that focuses on that type of content. Each category home page features a dynamic and eye-catching mix of video, promos for category-specific offers, a what's new section, and further information.

Disney also lets visitors sort themselves by type, and directs them to tailored home pages for preschoolers, boys, girls, families, kids and teens, and "Disney fans." The pages all have some of the same elements: a video window, promos, games, and "worlds" that may be of interest. For example, the boys page has the "Cars" world as one of the prominent links, while the girls page has the Tinkerbell-based Fairies world (both genders get Jack Sparrow and the Pirates of the Caribbean).

Since games are a hot area for kids (and possibly their parents), Disney is also beefing up its online gaming options with dozens of offerings. Users will be able to go directly to the games page, or use the Game Finder to search all games by character, age, or type--such as puzzles or multiplayer games.

Disney's new XD Platform (Extreme Digital) makes much of this possible, especially the most customizable content. Via the Disney XD section (see screen below), users can add videos to their own playlists, change the look and feel of their pages, store elements they see on other pages into their own backpack, chat with their friends, leave "stickers" with comments on other users' custom pages, and collect rewards or badges as they play games and otherwise participate in the site's content.

Users will also be able to use the XD platform in other parts of the site. For example, at launch, girls in the Faeries world will be able to create their own faery, name her, get her clothes.

But eventually, they also will be able to take that character they've created into other situations, like out on an adventure with other faeries, both preset by Disney or created by their friends.

Essentially, Disney users will be able to create avatars and bring them into rich online worlds, and use them to interact with others on the site. They will have multiple windows of multimedia content tailored to their tastes, with content from all Disney TV channels, movie studios, parks, and more.

According to Steve Parkis, Disney Online's VP of Premium Content, the technology could also be ported to other Disney properties, like ESPN and ABC, and may eventually go mobile.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

HDTV Displays Get Faster and Sharper

While 1080p HDTVs seem to be in everyone's portfolio at CES this year, three companies have announced another advance that should make for even better TV watching: refresh rates for LCD HDTVs that are double what's available now.

Ever notice that when you go into a retailer that most of the TV sets, particularly the LCD HDTVs, show rather placid images of glistening flowers or beautiful people walking slowly on the white sands of some tropical paradise? The reason is that LCD has long suffered a kind of motion sickness when the action is fast. There is a bit of blur in even the best of them, though most people hardly notice.

By increasing refresh rates from their standard 60 Hz to 120 Hz, new sets from Philips, Samsung, Sharp and should all produce much clearer imaging, especially when the action on screen is very quick. All three companies expect to have 120-Hz products on shelves this summer.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, please visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

Iomega Shows Multi-Drive NAS

For those concerned about data integrity, multidrive network-attached storage boxes that support RAID 1 (mirroring) and 5 (parity, for rebuilding lost data) in addition to striping (RAID 0) carry much appeal.

Iomega displayed its new StorCenter Pro 150D, a hefty 1TB box with four hot-swappable hard disk drives, two USB 2.0 ports, and a integrated print server. The unit will ship in late January, and is expected to sell for $799.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, please visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

All PC Ports Closed Ahead!

We all love our thumb drives--these compact, highly portable and highly resilient devices can stand up to the toughest of abuse on the road.

However, they can also be used by the unscrupulous to steal data from an unsuspecting user?s laptop--or load a virus--while that person gets a cup of coffee at a Starbuck?s hot spot, for example.

Enter Safend Personal Protector. This 15MB program from Safend, an enterprise security firm, does one very simple thing: it locks up all of your Windows laptop?s physical communications ports, from USB and Firewire to PC Card slots, and requires you to allow any device that tries to connect to your laptop in that way to be approved by you.

The interface is direct and easy to understand (see screenshot below), and you use your Windows password to authenticate yourself. The program remembers previously authenticated devices and builds a "white list" of them, so you don't have to keep reauthorizing your iPod, for example.

Get the program for free at Safend.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.